Our easy-to-use website contains details and locations of places to visit around this area. Please select from:

	Places to Stay: Bed and Breakfast Hotels and Guest Houses Pubs with Accommodation Self Catering
	Places to Eat and Drink: Cafes, Coffee & Tea Shops Pubs serving Food Restaurants and Bistros
	Places of Interest: Places to Visit
	Gardens Centres: Garden Centres/Nurseries
	Specialist Shops: Antiques & Restoration Arts and Crafts Fashions Gifts Home and Garden Jewellery Food and Drink Shops

Mauchline

This little town is still vibrant with memories of Robert Burns. Following the death of his father in 1784, the 25-year-old Burns took a lease on nearby Mossgiel Farm (private) which is still a working farm today. Rabbie was hopelessly incompetent as a farmer and his financial problems with the farm were compounded by his roller-coaster emotional relationship with Jean Armour, a sparky Mauchline lass. Jean lived in a house (now gone) in the Cowgate, daughter to a prosperous stone mason who, not surprisingly, originally disapproved of Jean seeing a penniless failed farmer who had a deserved reputation as a womaniser and who wrote verse. So much so that Jean’s mother packed Jean off to her uncle in Paisley, even though the couple had signed a marriage pact that was legal under Scots law of the time. Not only that - she was pregnant. Despite these dual tensions, this was a period of extraordinary creativity for Burns. To his time in Mauchline we owe To a Mountain Daisy, To a Mouse, Holy Willie’s Prayer and The Holy Fair. In 1786 his first volume of poems, now known as the Kilmarnock Edition, was published. The book became a best-seller and after savouring his literary triumph in the salons of Edinburgh, Burns returned to Mauchline in 1788 to marry Jean.

They set up house in Castle Street (which at that time was the main street of the village and was called Back Causeway) and their home now houses the Burns House Museum. The red sandstone building actually had four families living in it in the 18th century, but it has now been converted so that various displays and exhibitions can be accommodated. Robert and Jean’s apartment has been furnished in much the same way as it would have been in 1788 when they moved in. Across from it, but now a private house, was Nance Tinnock’s Inn, Burns’s favourite drinking place.

The Parish Church you see today is not the one that Burns knew. The old Norman church of St Michael was pulled down and rebuilt in 1826, though the kirkyard still has many graves connected with the poet (including the graves of four of his children). A chart on the church wall explains where each one is. Another one to look out for is that of William Fisher. William was an elder in Mauchline Kirk, and the butt of Burns’s satirical poem Holy Willie’s Prayer, in which he attacks the cant and hypocrisy of the church. Willie asks God’s forgiveness for his own, understandable sins, while asking that he severely punish the sins of others. Opposite the church is Poosie Nansy’s Inn. Though not a great frequenter of this inn, the poet still drank there occasionally, and Burns enthusiasts can still drink there today.

Burns’ residence in Mauchline has rather overshadowed the town’s two other claims to fame: the production of curling stones made from Ailsa Craig granite, and Mauchline Ware - highly collectable small boxes and other objects made from plane or sycamore wood, hand-painted with local scenes and varnished.

Gavin Hamilton was Burns’s friend and landlord. His house can still be seen, attached to the 15th century Abbot Hunter’s Tower. The tower looks like a small castle, but was in fact the monastic headquarters, or grange, of the Ayrshire estates owned by Melrose Abbey.

Burns used to wander through the Ballochmyle estates, which sit on the banks of the River Ayr. One day in about 1786 when he was strolling along the banks, he saw a Miss Wilhelmina Alexander. He was so taken by her that he wrote The Lass o’ Ballochmyle, one of his most famous works, in her honour. He sent it to her, but so angry was she that she never replied. However, the anger was more to do with the fact that she was in her 40s at the time, and thought that Burns was having a joke at her expense. In later years, however, she cherished the poem.

To the north of Mauchline is the Burns Memorial, built in 1897. It is a tall, red sandstone tower with a small museum inside. From the top, you get good views of the rich agricultural lands of Ayrshire. Beside the memorial, and forming part of it, are some pleasant alms cottages for old people.

The Ballochmyle Viaduct, to the south of Mauchline, carries the Glasgow to Dumfries line across the River Ayr, and is considered to be one of the finest railway bridges in the world. Work started on it in 1843, and it is still Britain’s highest stone and brick railway bridge, being 163 feet above the river. It has three smaller arches at either end, and one long, graceful arch in the middle that spans 181 feet. One of the main scenes from the film Mission Impossible was filmed there with Tom Cruise, though in the film it was supposed to be on the London to Paris line. During the First World War, a pilot is said to have flown under the main arch.